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tv   The Colbert Report  Comedy Central  December 11, 2012 11:30pm-12:00am PST

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>> jon: that's our show, join us tomorrow night at 11:00. here it is, your moment of zen. >> parent groups say this company has gone to far on a berry with "merry christmas" b word and a back in with what happens when you party tpha *eg naked and slang for captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org . >> stephen: tonight, a new threat from north korea. how will mach eye and klinger hand this will one? (laughter) then, can homosexuality be cured?
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and what will that mean for bravo's ratings? (laughter) plus, my guest, author malcolm gladwell wrote the forward the new yorker's "big book of dogs." i wonder if "dog fancy" has a "big book of gladwells." (laughter) it's now legal to carry a concealed weapon in all 50 states. so if you are in one of them, be careful. (laughter) this is "the colbert report" (cheers and applause) (cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome, ladies and gentlemen! (audience chanting "stephen")
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(cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the "report," folks, thank you for joining us. it's great to be me. nation, it's a special time of the year. we've been looking forward to it for months now. and wherever you go you can see the twinkle in little children's eyes because they know in a few short weeks ♪ the fiscal cliff is coming to town ♪ merry cliffmas! (laughter) and with a dramatic name like fiscal cliff, it's got to be exciting. jim? >> the president is asking for $1.6 trillion in revenue. >> $600 billion in tax hikes. >> entitlement reform. >> dividends and capital gains. >> discretionary spending. (laughter)
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(cheers and applause) what happened, is it over? (bleep) oak, folks, i'll admit it. i don't want to talk about the fiscal cliff and you don't want to hear about it. for the next 20 days, all pundit are contractually obligated to talk budgetary policy and you the viewer are obligated to listen. check your cable contract. (laughter) it's right below the part where come cast gets your kidneys. they'll be there to pick them up tomorrow between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. wear something loose. (laughter) if the parties here cannot agree to a budget deal by january 1, automatic spending cuts will kick in and plunge america into a second recession things are not looking too good. >> in washington, a fly in the ointment. debt deal negotiations have stalled. >> the fiscal cliff stalemate remains. >> the standoff continues. there isn't a lot of reason for hope. >> democrats and republicans are
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blaming each other for the stalled negotiations. >> who's going to blink sglirs what's going to blink first. >> the white house is daring republicans literally to blink. (laughter) >> stephen: obama is daring republicans literally to blink. well, the joke's on him! (laughter) because i know some republicans who had their eyelids surgically removed. (laughter) (cheers and applause) now obama won't budge off his calls for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over the coming decade, mostly from increasing tax rates and taxes on upper-bracket earners. folks, that's just punishing our nation's job creators. america's billionaires are the engine that drives our economy through smart investments! and occasionally through dumb ones. (laughter) today house speaker john boehner struck back with his plan to cut spending by demanding obama come up with boehner's plan to cut
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spending. (laughter) >> a lot of people know that the president and i met on sunday it was a nice meeting, it was cordial but we're still waiting for the white house to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make, where are the presidents spending cuts? >> stephen: now critics say the speaker is just asking democrats to put specifics in into the republican proposal but i say that's kind of fun. it makes the budget into a giant mad-lib. for instance, we agree to cut ten be zillion from the program that gives ukuleles to the sticky poor. toilet boom! (cheers and applause) we will have more on this story -- if i have to. (laughter) nation, there's a danger lurking around every corner. that's why i say we must start making all of our buildings round.
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(laughter) this is the threat down. (cheers and applause) first up, folks, i always keep watch on our international enemies, especially north korea. and their dear leader kim jong-un. in my book he is public enemy number un. (laughter) so i was terrified to learn that pyongyang's history institute of the d.p.r.k. academy of social sciences made this shocking discovery. >> an eyebrow-raising announcement out of north korea. the state news agency there claims that archaeologists have just located an ancient unicorn lair. (laughter) >> stephen: that's right. north korea has unicorn technology. (laughter) they said i was crazy when i called far glitter defense shield armed with ballistic sparkley stickers. (laughter) folks, this brings me to threat number two, commie unicorns. (laughter) this is a huge boon to north
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korea. and not just because someone there has finally found a source of protein. to make this earth-shattering discovery, north korean archaeologists had to travel 200 meters from a temple in the capital city pyongyang and then look down to see a rectangular rock carved with the words "unicorn lair." (laughter) it makes sense it's labeled, how else would the mailman know where to deliver the rainbows? (laughter) folks, listen to me here this has dangerous geopolitical ramifications because it gives historical legitimacy to the regime of kim jong-un by linking him to an ancient ruler who according to korea's history books road a unicorn and, as a key qlan, he road it gangnam style. (cheers and applause)
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one second, i just want to write down the last time i am legally allowed to reference gangnam style. (laughter) get that off to the library of congress. thank you very much. here's the danger, folks this will attract impressionable american girls to communism. look at this traditional rendering of a north korean unicorn. what little girl wouldn't love to cuddle up with a catfish faced reptilian horse beast? (laughter) don't do it, girls! because we've got better mythical creatures right here in america like big foot! or a moderate republican. (cheers and applause) hey, it could be out there. maybe david brooks will let you braid his hair. (laughter) next up the recession hit men particularly hard and this
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mansession has affected traditional gender roles. with the collapse of home building former construction workers are staying home with their kids and according to the "new york times" some retailers are taking advantage of this trend. >> barbie has a new accessory and it's a tool belt. the "new york times" reports mattel is introducing a construction set for barbie. >> stephen: folks a construction set is no place for barbie, those erector set workers are going to cat call her and ask her to back it up like a tonka truck. (laughter) which brings me to threat number one: foreman barbie. i'm sorry but i'm against this new megablocks construction set barbie. she can't operate heavy machinery. barbie's ankles aren't even load bearing. (laughter) besides, ken has more carpentry experience. remember, he lost his genitals in a table saw accident.
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and folks that's -- okay, i'll tell you why there's a mansession, barbie here is hogging all the jobs she's a doctor, an astronaut, a race car driver, a police officer, a flight attendant, a computer engineer, a firefighter, a dentist, a pail i don't know tolgsz and a fox news anchor. (cheers and applause) so barbie, leave these jobs for the fellas. you're giving men a bad self-image and you're only supposed to do that to girls! we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) aú
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>> stephen: (cheers and applause) welcome back, everybody. nation, everybody who watches this show knows that we are engaged in a war against the gays. the latest battlefield is california where governor jerry brown recently signed a law banning gay repairive the therapy: treatments aimed at turning gay kids straight. just because the american psychological association says gay conversion therapy can cause depression and suicide attempts. big deal! so does lunesta. (laughter) that's just ambien for gay people. that's why there's a butterfly. fortunately -- that's true. it's true. fortunately, federal judge
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william shove told california to shove it. >> the state of california has been blocked from enforcing a new ban on therapy that seeks to change the sexual orientation of minors from gay to straight. a federal judge ruled the law may inhibit the first amendment rights of therapists who oppose homosexuality. >> stephen: damn straight! these kids need our help. not only are they gay, look how blurry they are! (laughter) that's all right. folks, this is a good call because these anti-gay treatments are proven. a recent lawsuit in new jersey highlighted some of the most effective methods anti-gay therapists use. >> in another exercise a man has to break through a human barricade that i was a part of in order to seize two oranges that were meant to symbolize his testicles. he was then instructed to squeeze the juice from them and drink them and put the oranges in his pants in order to
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represent gaining his testicles. the symbolic absence of them supposedly being a cause of his homosexuality. (audience reacts) (cheers and applause) >> stephen: also a great way to provide fresh-squeezed o.j. for the clinic's breakfast bar. others had patients beating an effigy of their mothers with a tennis racket, being subjected to ridicule as faggots and visiting bathhouses and ordered to be nude with father figures. well, that makes perfect sense. they cure you by throwing you in a room with a bunch of naked men. it's like when your dad caught you smoking and forced you to smoke a whole carton of cigarettes with a bunch of naked men. (laughter) (applause)
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judge shove reminds us that the evidence of emotional damage caused by gay conversion therapy is based on questionable and scientifically incomplete studies unlikely to satisfy the demands of strict scrutiny. exactly! there's no scientific consensus that with stand the sort of strict scrutiny that stuffing oranges down your pants does. (laughter) because if we outlaw these therapies we've have no choice but to sit back and let people be gay! just like we gave up on curing left-handedness. (laughter) and now we've got one of them the white house. (laughter) we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) %77i8#gzi#
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(cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is the author of best-selling book "blink" "the tipping point" and "outliars." i'll ask what he reads on an airplane. please welcome malcolm gladwell. (cheers and applause) malcolm, good to see you again, thanks for coming back. old home week, haven't had you on in a while. good to have you on again. >> good to be back. >> stephen: you are here because you're a renown author already. you have your "blink" "outliars" all that good stuff. you have a new book that you've written the forward by and have a couple stories in here of your own called "the big new yorker book of dogs." i'll get straight to my problem
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with this. (laughter) okay? you know i've got a problem with this, right? >> i'm sure you do. >> stephen: that can't come as a surprise to you. the "new yorker," okay? you think pieces -- you write think pieces. why do you want to make me think about my dog? (laughter) i feel about my dog and my dog loves me back unconditionbly, why ruin that with thinking about it? (laughter) >> well, these are exceptions, i think, to the typical "new yorker" story. when it comes to writing about our dogs we let our hair down a little bit. >> stephen: you let your hair up of course. (laughter) >> well, i wasn't including myself. >> stephen: what who does your grooming, by the way? do you ever crack an egg in there to keep it silky? >> i don't. >> stephen: you should, you should. if we all let our hair down when we're talking about our dogs-- you say "our dogs" do you have a dog? >> i don't have a dog. >> stephen: you don't have a dog. okay. >> my building doesn't allow dogs.
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i'm an aspirational dog owner. (laughter) >> stephen: really. so if you had the ability you would own a dog? >> someday i hope to own a dog. i grew up with dogs. >> stephen: were you raised by wolfes? (laughter) grew up with dogs? >> i had dogs -- my parents had dogs when i was a child and i don't know -- this is perhaps why i was asked to write the forward because i've done things on behalf of dogs. >> stephen: i know this. >> a but the years ago i saved a dog that was on death row in new jersey. an akita named taro who had been wrongly convicted, as it turns out, of biting a young girl. and i did an enormous exposé on this. and the dog was granted a reprieve. a stay of execution. and relocated to new york state. (cheers and applause) i feel i've learned my stripes
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when it comes to the issue of dogs. >> stephen: so you're soft on dog crime? >> yes. >> stephen: what is it about dogs that makes intelligent men, gifted women, great minds, look at them and say "who's a good boy?" is this that something evolutionary inn us that makes us good (speaks gibberish) (laughter) because you can't help but do it. >> well, dogs were evolved to pay attention to us. >> stephen: or made by god perfectly to pay attention to us. >> they're an extraordinary example of a species that we have bread on the basis of their -- of how much attention they pay to us and how closely they look a us in the eye and how attentive they hang on our every word. it's the most narcissistic thing we've ever done as human beings. (laughter) >> stephen: so it's the best thing we've ever done.
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as far as we're concerned, because we are the ones who are the subject of the narcissism. >> yes. i dog pays more attention to your face than a human being does because dogs have much better eyesight than we do and they have much better hearing and obviously much better smell. >> stephen: my dog gipper and i are always in constant competition as to who can pay more attention to me. (laughter) everything has to be political these days. i haven't seen much political in here. everything has to be political in our lives today, you know this. what is the conservative dog and what is the liberal dog? >> well, this may by one of those wonderful examples that doesn't have --. >> stephen: wrong, wrong. the president's dog bo is the liberal dog. it's a portuguese water dog, okay? why not an american water dog? conservative dogs? >> i don't know. i mean, that's a --.
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>> stephen: checkers. >> that was nixon's dog. >> but remember checkers was given to nixon by -- that was the whole scandal. we're both dating ourselves. >> i wish i could date myself. (laughter) again, i'm paying a lot more attention to me than i dog is. cats war war worshipped by ancient egyptians. does anybody worship dogs? >> new yorkers worship their dogs. the particular status of the new york city dog who is pampered but also the same time whose owner feels guilty about having their dog in new york city. right? i mean, it's an extraordinarily -- this relationship defined by guilt >> i think one of the most extraordinary things, the most unique things about dog in new
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york is that this is one of the few places in the world where humans also poop on the sidewalk. (laughter) >> yes, there is. >> stephen: they fit in. (laughter) well on that note, malcolm gladwell, thank you so much for joining me. "the "new yorker" book of dogs." be a good boy and go fetch one. we'll be right ba úáé!é!é!é!&íki÷z÷z-a
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(cheers and applause)